Don Draper Meets Wonder Woman
by DanS2015
Summary: Don Draper meets a beautiful woman named Diana in a diner in Malibu.


Don Draper sat alone in Jack's Diner in Malibu, California. On the table before him was the same breakfast he'd been eating for the past week: scrambled eggs, half a piece of toast, and a sausage patty. The diner was bustling this morning, but Don's mind wasn't on his breakfast or his surroundings. It was on the life he'd left behind in New York.

With his life seemingly at a crossroads, Don found himself running. He'd run from his job, from his kids, from his so-called love life, and from the few people at work who had become if not friends at least regular fixtures in his world. Now, though, he couldn't find the strength to keep moving, so he'd stopped here in Malibu, where he'd spent most of the last week strolling aimlessly along the beach.

Don looked up and saw a striking face across the restaurant. Suddenly his focus was on the here and now. Having worked in advertising, Don had seen his share of beautiful women – there was girl next door beauty and then there was the kind of beauty required for modeling work - but this woman was so beautiful she might as well have been part of another species altogether. She had perfect cheekbones, rose-red lips, and eyes so blue they reached out across the room like a lighthouse beacon.

Don had to meet this woman. He stood up and quickly bridged the distance between them, no longer caring about his half-eaten breakfast or the life he was still in the process of leaving behind.

"Excuse me. Do I know you?"

The woman looked up from her breakfast and made eye contact with Don. "You can skip the lines. They aren't going to work." She returned to her breakfast, the same one Don had just abandoned.

"Sorry . . . I just thought . . . It must have been the light." Don shook his head. He half-turned to go back to his table, but he hesitated. This moment – this woman – seemed too important to give up on so easily.

"It's okay," said the beautiful stranger.

Don turned back and looked at the woman. "I'm Don, by the way. Let me buy you a drink."

"Thanks, Don, but it's 8:30 in the morning. A little early to be drinking if you ask me. And I'm Diana."

Don smiled. "Of course. I don't know what I was thinking. What I should have said is _let me buy you your breakfast_."

Diana looked up at the man and scrutinized him. Diana thought the man was handsome in an aging movie star kind of way, but his good looks couldn't mask the incredible depths of sadness inside him. She kept these observations to herself. Ordinarily she would have brushed him off and returned to her meal. For some reason, probably because of the sadness, she didn't do that this time.

Don stood there, trapped in limbo, held by the woman's gaze but completely unable to read the expression on her face. He hoped that once she finally passed judgment the sentence would be a favorable one.

"Have a seat, Don."

"Thank you." Relieved, Don sat down and leaned forward as if the two of them were now co-conspirators. "Do you come here often?"

"Another line?"

"No," said Don. "I've been here every day for the past week and don't remember seeing you before."

"You don't remember seeing me, but I look familiar?"

Don grinned. "Touché."

"Well, to answer your question, Don, no I don't come here often, as you already know. Assuming you have in fact come in here every day for the past week. This is my first and probably last time here. I'm just passing through for work."

"What is it that you do?"

Coming from most men the question would have seemed prying, invasive even. Coming from Don, Diana saw something child-like behind the words, a genuine curiosity devoid of self-consciousness. She was a stranger here in Malibu, but this man seemed to be a stranger in this _world_. Already, he wasn't what she had expected when his shadow first darkened her breakfast plate.

"I work for the government," said Diana. "What is it that _you_ do?"

"I'm between things at the moment. I worked in advertising for a while. New York."

"Advertising? That sounds interesting. Anything I would know?"

"Probably a lot of things," said Don. "But that's all in the past. I guess you could say I burned out, got tired of selling things I didn't necessarily believe in."

"And now you're trying to find yourself?"

"Something like that." Don looked up and waved at the waitress. "Could I get a glass of water over here? Thank you."

Diana took a bite of her eggs and looked at Don when she finished. "I don't know what you're looking for, Don, but I don't think you're going to find it with me. Just so you know."

Don tried not to look offended, but he had some difficulty concealing his surprise. He thought about saying something, but what was there to say? He'd gotten up, left his breakfast behind, and approached a strange woman in a busy diner. They both knew why he had done that. It wasn't because Diana looked familiar; it was because he wanted Diana to look familiar in the future.

"Why'd you let me sit down?" Don asked.

"Because you looked like you needed someone to talk to."

"I've been talking all my adult life. What I really need is for someone to listen."

"I can do that."

Don smiled. "Thank you."

Don Draper proceeded to unburden himself to Diana in a way he had never unburdened himself before, telling this woman he barely knew things he had never told his wives or his daughter or anyone he had ever felt comfortable enough with to confide in. He wasn't even sure _why_ he was doing it; maybe because he didn't think he would ever see Diana again. Maybe it was because he hoped he would see Diana every day for the rest of his life. He didn't know, and he didn't care. He just knew he had to do this; he had to tell her everything.

When he finished, Diana, who had mostly been listening without offering criticisms or suggestions or saying much of anything at all, reached across the table and took Don's hand in hers.

"It's going to be okay, Don."

"Is it?"

Diana nodded. "It is. Someday you'll find what you're looking for, Don. First, you have to figure out what it is." Diana stood up and extended her hand, which Don promptly shook.

"Thank you, Diana."

Don Draper never saw Diana again. As he watched her walk out of the diner and out of his life he wondered what her last name was. He hadn't asked, and without a last name he would never be able to find her again, not unless fate somehow brought them together, and what were the odds of that happening? Not very good, he realized.

The woman's name was Diana Prince, but Don would never know that. Seven years later, on a crowded street in downtown Los Angeles, Don Draper, now almost completely gray-haired but still vibrant and healthy, would witness a superhero named Wonder Woman stop an alien menace from destroying the city. As he watched the woman do battle with the alien he couldn't help but think back to the day he had met Diana in Jack's Diner in Malibu. There was something so familiar about Wonder Woman, but she couldn't possibly be the woman from the diner, could she?

Don smiled and dismissed the thought as wishful thinking from an exhausted mind. When the battle was over Don applauded like everyone else and went back to his life. Occasionally he would be haunted by dreams of the beautiful woman he had met in the diner that day in Malibu, but he knew the dreams were just that – dreams. No one could be as beautiful as the image of the woman he had built up in his memories of that day.


End file.
